


Blumentod

by TigerMoon



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Hanahaki AU, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Mild Blood, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, no fluff here we angst like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:03:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerMoon/pseuds/TigerMoon
Summary: Of all the deaths he has suffered, Ozpin thinks as the rose vines wrap that much tighter around his heart, this one will be the most painful.





	Blumentod

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses other than 'oh hey cool AU' and 'let's make Ozpin suffer'. :| Which the latter, as most people know, is my natural state of being.
> 
> I love him so much. <3
> 
> I don't know what the hell I was doing with the format of this fic. It was an experiment and I hate it. :D

The meeting is over. The three walk out, Glynda first, with her posture held high and tight in disapproval at the ones behind her. Behind her, Qrow, slouched and fiddling with his flask as James comes along side him, great shoulders bent in some heavy emotion.

 

A calloused hand brushes against another, James’s fingers entwining with Qrow’s as the elevator doors close.

 

Ozpin closes his eyes and chokes on roses.

 

* * *

 

The Mistrali call it _Hanahaki_. The Atlesians, _Blumentod_. A curse, according to some; a disease to others. When a person loves someone with all of their heart and soul, and that love cannot be returned, the flowers come. Vines around the lungs, the heart, feeding off the person’s Aura. Every breath an agony, breathing out the blossoms that speak the love unspoken, until either that love is returned… or the person dies.

 

There is no other cure.

 

Of all the deaths he has suffered, Ozpin thinks as the rose vines wrap that much tighter around his heart, this one will be the most painful.

 

* * *

 

He’d had a chance, once.

 

Quietly pining, uncertain, gathering up his courage – because fighting a millennia-long war was so much easier than telling one person _I love you_ – he’d asked Qrow to stay back after one meeting. A bottle of top-shelf whiskey in his desk, a question on his lips. And then-

 

“’Course, Oz. I can take a moment. My plans can wait.”

 

Red eyes looked behind him at James, and the slight blush that graced the taller man’s cheeks at the soft, fond look.

 

(He’d dreamed of being looked at like that, as though he meant something, _everything_ , and to see it aimed at another drew his blood cold in his veins.)

 

“He’s ‘plans,’” Qrow added with a smirk. Happy. Content. As if the world was still spinning.

 

As if he hadn’t just broken his best friend’s heart.

 

Ozpin couldn’t remember the conversation after that, or how he’d managed to rush them out. All he could remember was the coldness in his chest, the sudden pain.

 

That he’d coughed, once, and brought up a single, bloodstained rose.

 

* * *

 

A snippet of a conversation, overheard:

 

“He’s _lonely_ , James.”

 

“That’s his own fault, Qrow. Ozpin… it took me a long time to even _like_ him. Anything else, well. Ozpin just seems like a very hard man to love.”

 

* * *

 

Glynda sweeps a handful of rose petals off his desk with a sigh, letting them dissolve into emerald Aura.

 

They’re discussing the Vytal festival, or his rapidly diminishing role in it. In a way, he’s thankful. He has precious little energy left to think about the festival when there’s so much else to worry about. Amber, Pyrrah, the Fall Maiden’s powers. The nervous edge in the back of his mind that says something is coming. Salem’s next move, unknown.

 

The fact that he is dying.

 

He brings a hand up to his lips and coughs, two petals fluttering from his lips. Dark crimson, shading to black, with edges so frayed they look almost like feathers. A perfect representation of the man he was dying for.

 

Glynda sighs again and hands him a cup of water. “Ozpin,” she says, her voice far too gentle. “Please-”

 

He shakes his head. “He’s happy, Glynda,” he manages after a few swallows. “It would be selfish of me to-”

 

“It’s selfish of you not to. This is the world we’re talking about!”

 

Ozpin shifts the cup in his trembling hands, quiet. After a moment, there’s a tentative touch on his wrist; he looks up to Glynda, expecting anger or rebuke from the woman he knows is made of steel.

 

What he doesn’t expect is the sorrow in those emerald eyes.

 

“You have to at least try,” she says. “If not for you, then for those of us that care about you. We need you, Ozpin.”

 

(But he’ll come back, even if he dies. It’s never permanent, not for him. They don’t need him; they need the Wizard, the knowledge, the magic. Whoever holds that isn’t important.)

 

Even so… it’s a weakness, that he cannot stand to see those he cares for hurting. So he nods, once, and swallows back the feeling of roses swarming in his throat. “All right,” he says. “I’ll try.”

 

* * *

 

It’s late at night, just him and James and a flask of bourbon between them, when it happens. The clench of vines, the dig of thorns, and mid-sentence Ozpin is suddenly on hand and knee on the floor, clawing at his throat for breath that will not come. His throat is bulging, blood trickling from his lips, and he cannot _breathe_ , oh gods, his heartbeat pounds in his ears and his vision is grey and-

 

“ _Ozpin!_ ”

 

A terrific blow between the shoulder blades, and suddenly he breathes out an explosion of bloodstained rose petals. A great whooping breath, and he coughs, again and again, roses and blood spraying from lips gone blue. Arms grasp him before he can collapse to the floor; he closes his eyes and struggles for breath until his head clears.

 

Ozpin opens his eyes to see James hovering over him, the general’s face pale. Between his gloved fingers is a single rose petal, feathery edges black against the white cotton. “How long,” he says, staring down at him as it disintegrates into green.

 

“You’ll have to be clearer,” he croaks, pushing himself to sit up a bit straighter.

 

“How long have you been in love with Qrow?”

 

He closes his eyes and coughs once behind a fist. “I don’t know what you’re-”

 

“Ozpin.” The general is often angry with him, but this is different. Tighter, somehow, more guarded. The hand on his shoulder tightens almost painfully and he sighs.

 

“For a very long time.” The thorns scrape against his heart; it somehow hurts less that thinking about it, years wasted pining after someone who could never see him as he wanted. “I have loved him since long before you met him, James.”

 

Ironwood kneels in front of him, in the morass of rose petals as they dissolve into light. “And you didn’t tell him.”

 

“I had planned to. I was just… too late.”

 

He struggles for a second to rise; James pushes him firmly back down. “And now? Do you plan to tell him now?”

 

Ozpin takes in a deep breath and exhales. Even his breath is sickly-sweet now, perfumed with his death. “Is he happy, James?”

 

The younger man stills above him.

 

“If you can’t tell me honestly that he’s happy….” He’s tired. He’s tired and weak and shouldn’t be pushing like this when he’s in so much pain, but this is the last thread of hope he has left. It feels like this is _all_ he has left, in the end. “Qrow… has had a hard life, James. I have not helped, in that regard. But he has cared, for this world, for _me_. And there is nothing more I would love to do than show him how much he means.” A strangled breath. “To me. All I have wanted is his happiness. If you cannot tell me that he’s happy, that he’s loved… I will tell him.”

 

A fit of coughing sweeps over him, choking; Ironwood watches impassively this time, not moving to help as he strangles. “I can’t,” Ozpin finally manages, wiping the blood from his lips with the back of his hand. “If you make him happy, James. If he truly loves you… I can’t take that away from him.”

 

James closes his eyes and lets his shoulders fall. “I love him too much to let him go,” he says quietly. “And it’s selfish of you to ask me to.”

 

Ozpin huffs a small laugh at that, his tired eyes meeting Ironwood’s before looking away. “We’re both selfish men, James,” he sighs. “Putting one man’s happiness over the fate of the world. But then, what kind of men would we be, if we weren’t willing to do so?”

 

He closes his eyes as Ironwood gets to his feet. The fight is over, Ironwood has won; but oh, it feels like such a hollow victory when his opponent is just like him, human, whose only crime was to love and love too deeply.

 

Ozpin doesn’t even open his eyes as Ironwood hesitates.

 

“Don’t pity me, James,” he says quietly. “It’s my own fault, in the end. I’m just… a very hard man to love.”

 

* * *

 

“ _-who can you trust?_ ”

 

The world is ending around them.

 

The students, the city, the people – screaming, running, dying – chaos, pain, _fear_ – _**Salem**_.

 

Qrow and Glynda burst into his office, not quite panicked but close.

 

“Get to the city!” Ozpin manages, until Qrow reaches for him (no hold it together don’t breathe) and he buckles over in a flurry of crimson petals.

 

But Qrow’s there, at his side, and oh god, his eyes are wide because those petals are feathered like his emblem and they match the color of his eyes and he _knows_ now, gods he _knows_ -

 

“Oz?” he asks, his hand so very gentle against his cheek. For a second he closes his eyes and breathes in the moment, the touch – and then he shoves Qrow away.

 

“The _city,_ Qrow!”

 

“But-”

 

“ _ **Now!**_ ”

 

Qrow scowls and draws Harbinger. “We’re talking when this is over, Oz!” he shouts as Glynda pulls him away.

 

Ozpin doesn’t reply. He refuses to let his last words to Qrow be a promise he can’t keep.

 

* * *

 

(He’s too weak, in the end, to protect them. To protect _him_. The rosevines crawl up his throat as he fights, bloom from his lips, and as the fire burns the roses from the inside out all he can think of is crimson eyes and a hand against his cheek, words left unspoken that will never be said.)

 

* * *

 

A month after what the people call the Battle of Beacon, and James finds Qrow sitting in the floor of his airship cabin with a flask in one hand and Ozpin’s soot-covered cane across his lap.

 

In the other hand… James stills.

 

It’s a rose. Crimson, so dark it’s almost black, with edges tattered like crow feathers.

 

As he watches, a petal falls from it.

 

“Where did you find-”

 

“Did you know?”

 

He doesn’t move. “Did you know, James?” Qrow presses. His crimson eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed; from the stagnant air under the academy, Ironwood reasons.

 

It’s easier to believe that than to think that Qrow has been mourning.

 

“I knew,” he says after a beat.

 

Qrow crushes the rose. It shatters, only the faintest of emerald sparks fluttering up from it; the rest turns to dust in his hand. “And you didn’t tell me,” he growls. “Neither one of you bothered to _tell me_ something this important.”

 

“Qrow, there wasn’t a good time-”

 

“A good time?” He scoffs. “When the-fuck- _ever_ is there a good time to tell someone that their best friend is _dying_ for love of them?”

 

James sighs, rubbing his forehead. “I understand-”

 

“No. No you godsdamned _don’t_ understand, Jimmy.” He heaves himself to his feet, rosestained fingers wrapped around the hilt of Ozpin’s cane, and brings it to his chest. “I know why Oz didn’t tell me. He… he was... he’s a stubborn _idiot!_ But you! I expected better!”

 

He steps closer, prying the flask from his hand and taking hold. “Would you rather I gave you up without a fight? I – dammit, Qrow, I love you, all right? I wasn’t going to give you up without a fight!”

 

“Give me up?”

 

Qrow takes a deep breath. “You know, I loved him? Maybe not exactly how he wanted, but Oz is – was – my closest friend. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be able to love you as much as I do.” He bites his lip, bent over the dusty cane. “You both act like love is some kind of… zero-sum game! It doesn’t _work_ like that, James!”

 

James places his hands on Qrow’s shoulders, horrified as he shudders and wipes dampness from crimson eyes. “You always said he was hard to love, but… I could have. I could have, so easily, if I’d known. And I could have loved him, and still loved you.” He squeezes his eyes tight, rests his forehead against the cold white jewel of the cane. “I could have _saved him_ , James.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, stroking the wet from his lover’s cheek. “Qrow, I’m sorry you lost him.”

 

“I believe you.” Qrow pushes him back just a bit, raising his gaze to look at him eye-to-eye. “And I believe you’d do the same thing again, if we did it over.”

 

James is silent.

 

“Thought so.” Qrow kisses his lips, a gentle movement, then pulls away. “I’m sorry too, James. For this.”

 

“Qrow?”

 

“I love you, James.” He looks away, defeated, tired – so much like Ozpin did the last time James spoke with him that the guilt wrenches his chest, the place where his human heart used to sit. “But I can’t forgive you. Not for this.”

 

A cry rips free his lips before he can stop it. “Qrow-”

 

“Oz needs me,” he says distantly. “A new life, new body… I made a vow to help his next incarnation, and I plan to follow through. I haven’t forgiven him, either. Maybe I’ll get to tell him that.”

 

“Qrow, _please_ ,” James says miserably.

 

“Be well, James,” Qrow says, and he turns and walks away.

 

* * *

 

A continent away:

 

“You had that dream again,” Oscar says to the empty air, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “The one where you drown in the roses.”

 

Ozpin, in his mind, is quiet – heartsick and longing for a shadowed dream Oscar will never fully see.

 

“… I never know how it ends,” he says after a moment.

 

Ozpin laughs softly, sadly. “It’s nothing special,” he says. “I just let someone save me.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave hate mail in the comments plzkthx <3


End file.
